Rivers of the Night - Chapter 664

Chapter 664: Empty

Macie felt the shift in the air. It was almost as though something intangible was constricting around her, an invisible set of eyes looking down on her from above.

She was no longer facing a child.

It was always all to easy to forget that Theron was just 15 years old. The way he carried himself, that gentle smile that put even the old at ease, the sharpness in his eyes whenever he decided that he would be serious.

These were all things that seemed far beyond his age.

However, that nagging voice in the back of Macie’s mind telling her to be careful was drowned out by all the rage.

Her scythe’s blade twisted around her, leaving streaks of foggy chill in its wake. Everything were it passed, cascading sparkles of iced water vapor took shape, falling to the ground in tears of the long forgotten.

Every sprinkle left divots of ice on the ground, a single touching leaching away life and leaving swaths of death and cold in its wake.

When she finally stabilized herself from the breakthrough of Theron’s short sword, she exploded forward, swinging her scythe like a mad woman.

Theron’s grip on his blades didn’t strengthen. In fact, they loosened just the slightest bit.

He sank back onto the tips of his toes, his knees bending into such a relaxed position it almost looked as though he was exhaling in meditation.

His eyes tracked the speed of the coming curved blade, his Third Eye layering onto it an extra sensory sense of what was happening.

Deep inside, his Echoes churned and he pulled on his Impenetrable Octopus and Immortal Jellyfish incarnations. The color of his eyes deepened into a indigo that enticed the senses and reminded one of the mysterious depths of space.

Silky strands of this same indigo layered the atmosphere, fighting for supremacy against the deathly chill hanging in the air.

The tips of Theron’s eyelashes and small hairs on his skin had been showing signs of frosting over just moments ago. But the moment he matched his Echoes with his Chill and Dark Chill Mandates, the control it had on him shattered.

Everything happened in a flashing instant of time, a single blink and any other Gold Mancer would have long had their head severed from their necks by the swing of the scythe.

But Theron took a calm step back, his dagger meeting the scythe in sparks once again. The curve of the blade threatened to accelerate his push back, but he resisted against it until the curve began to bend toward Macie once again.

Theron pressed harder, feeling his dagger withstanding a great amount of damage, but remaining unrelenting.

He pushed forward, the arch of Macie’s scythe sending him toward her once again, and just when he was about to run out of blade track, his wrist twisted.

The swing of Macie’s scythe was ripped off and to the side, her body overtwisting.

It was obvious to Theron from the very start that Macie had no experience using a scythe, maybe she didn’t even expect her family heirloom would become one.

So he took advantage.

Theron’s hips pivoted, unleashing a vicious kick right at the side of Macie’s knee. The air collapsed the moment he accelerated forward, the strength of his body something that these normal Mancers couldn’t fathom.

He was no normal Gold Mancer, he was just as easily as Primal Beast in humanoid form.

Macie’s body was almsot entirely turned to the side by the spin of her scythe, her side was completely open. She was in no position to defend.

The devastating crunch of her knee reverberated through the air like shattered ice.

She grunted, her body collapsed. A late cast of a Dark Spell tried to form a defensive barrier, but it was a step late. She had been too worried about Theron following up with an attack with his short sword, not expecting him to use actual close combat skills instead.

Chi. Chi. Chi.

Theron’s short sword cut across her throat as she fell to a knee. Or, rather, it tried to. But lucky for her, she had barely managed to activate her defensive technique.

Unlucky for her was the fact Theron seemed to have calculated all of this in advance.

Stricken down her knee, her scythe twisted around her into the ground, and all too worried about a blade passing right through her head, she had no defense against another movement of Theron’s lengths.

With a vicious stomp, Theron came down from above, right onto one of Macie’s wrists.

She screamed in pain, her hold on the scythe shattering.

Every motion was like a chess move, every attack like a further step toward checkmate.

“Empty power.”

Theron’s voice hung on the wind with even greater chill that the humming ghosts.

His foot twisted and buried the scythe into the ground, his other foot kicking forward and slamming its heel right against Macie’s head.

She was sent flying into the distance, sprawling along the ground and rolling once, then twice, then thrice.

“I advise you not make a move.” Theron said coldly, speaking not to Macie, but the Nightingale Ancestor Bird. “I’m quite well aware that you have the strength fend off a Dome of Heaven expert, but I can make you self destruct and end the Nightingale Bloodline right here an now. Do you want to try me?”

The implication was obvious. Remain dormant and he would leave with it, leaving Macie alone.

Overextend itself, and Theron would risk all of their lives by making such a powerful weapon detonate.

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird hesitated. It didn’t want to believe Theron. Although Theron had refined it, it was clearly in Macie’s control now. Macie should be able to override his control and attempts at a detonation, right?

But deep inside, the Nightingale Ancestor Bird believed Theron. This child… his depths were too unfathomable.

In that briefest moment of the Nightingale Ancestor Bird’s hesitation, THeron brought out the Dagger Call Platform and a great suppressive force fell from above.